Please download the following files for document preparation using LaTeX.
Unfortunately, at the present time (and in the foreseeable future),
there is no support for plain TeX or other flavors of TeX (such as AMSTeX, ConTeXt, etc.)

Some conferences may require that special templates be used.
Please check the website of your conference.
These templates cannot be downloaded here.

The document root.tex may be configured for US Letter paper or A4.
Please note the following important lines:

\documentclass[letterpaper, 10 pt, conference]{ieeeconf} % Comment this line out if you need a4paper
%\documentclass[a4paper, 10pt, conference]{ieeeconf} % Use this line for a4 paper
\IEEEoverridecommandlockouts % This command is only needed if
% you want to use the \thanks command
\overrideIEEEmargins % Needed to meet printer requirements.

What else do I need to create PDF documents using LaTeX?

In addition to above style files you need the following components:

A LaTeX distribution for your platform, e.g.
MikTeX 2.3 or higher (for Windows),
TeTeX 1.0.7 or higher (for Linux and other *nix flavors) and
OzTeX 5.1 or higher (for Mac).
Make sure that your installation uses Type 1 fonts.
Earlier versions of LaTeX used Type 3 or Bitmapped fonts.
These are not scalable (i.e. render well on screen as well as print).
The paper submission system checks for fonts used and if it detects Type 3 fonts, the paper cannot be uploaded.
We cannot assist with installation of these packages on your system, however, they all come with extensive installation notes.

Options 1 and 2 are high quality open source software and widely in use. Adobe Distiller is a commercial product.
There are several other products (free or commercial) in the market that can produce compatible PDF files.
However, there is no support available for them through these pages.

Some distributions of LaTeX (e.g. MikTeX) come bundled with
pdfTeX
that can directly create PDF files from TeX source.
However, this will require that you have all graphics/images of your document available in PDF format.
It cannot convert encapsulated postscript to PDF.
Its use requires minor modifications to the LaTeX source file and the details for that
appear in pdfTeX documentation and are not repeated here.

How do I create compliant PDFs from LaTeX source?

Assuming that you have a LaTeX distribution for your platform with "Type 1" fonts installed, use one of the following options:

These instructions have been tested under Linux with teTeX 1.0.7 and Ghostscript 7.0.4, and more recently with teTeX 3.0 and
Ghostscript 8.15.

Without -d[options] listed above, ps2pdf will not embed and subset fonts as required by PDF compliance
and your paper will not be ready for upload. Note that if you specify the Adobe Times, Helvetica and Courier font
families (the so-called base 14 fonts) to be used but do not have them installed on your computer then they will not be embedded.
Pdf files with these fonts missing may or may not be accepted depending on the conference settings; they often are.

Do not omit the target paper size in each step as your system may have a
default paper size setting that differs from the target paper size.

fails while producing an incomprehensible error message.
This is because under Windows ps2pdf is implemented as a batch file which does not allow the character = to be used.
In this case modify the command to

If you are using Windows, we strongly recommend using
GSview, a graphical font end to Ghostscript,
to convert your postscript file to pdf.
It provides an easy interface for setting up the above parameters for ps2pdf.

Follow the steps of the
previous item
to generate a postscript file from your LaTeX source file.
Open the postscript file in GSView.

The first step is to set the media size to Letter.
To do this, in the GSview menubar at the top click on "Media" and select Letter as shown below:

Next, click on "File | Convert".
In the ensuing window, in Options textbox type in "-dMAxSubsetPct=100", then follow screenshots below:

This option makes sure that the files will be viewable by readers with Acrobat Reader 5 and later.

These two settings, together with "-dMAxSubsetPct=100" will ensure that all fonts are embedded as required.

PDFLaTeX is a special version of LaTeX by Han The Thanh which produces PDF output directly
using Type-1 fonts instead of the standard dvi file.
However, it is still in beta version and does not accept all of the LaTeX packages or postscript figures.

For this path you must convert all of your postscript figures to pdf.
This can be done by "epstopdf" or Adobe's Acrobat distiller.
In addition, you have to change your TeX-file, at minimum to include the .pdf-graphics.

If you start a new document from scratch, intended to get a PDF, this path is the first choice,
although pdfLaTeX is still in "beta-state"

LaTeX and pdfLaTeX behave by default differently concerning the character-spacing.
As a result, the same TeX-File compiled with LaTeX and pdfLaTeX may show different line-breaks,
paragraphs, page-breaks etc. Fortunately, there is a switch in pdfLaTeX to ensure LaTeX spacing.

If you are using a Mac system with OS 8.6 or lower, you will need to use OzTeX 4.1 -
then you have to make sure that you have Type 1 fonts installed since the installation comes with Type 3 fonts.
Else, download and install the latest version OzTeX
that comes standard with Type 1 CM and AMS fonts.

Download the Mac version of ieeeconf.cls with appropriate carriage returns.
Some users have experienced difficulty converting the windows version to Mac leading to compilation problems.

Add the following lines to your "Add Outline Fonts" config file:

paper_width = 8.5in
paper_height = 11in

In Oztex 5.1, use the "Add Outline Fonts" config.

Finally, when you dvips, the options -CMPS should automatically pop-up. Leave it alone.

OzTeX hints and images courtesy of Brad Burchett.

Should I use dvips/ghostscript/distiller combination, PDFLaTeX or dvipdfm?

There are currently two viable alternatives in producing compliant PDF documents from LaTeX (the dvips method and
the pdfTeX Method).
The first option is currently the best one owing to the fact that the LaTeX source file does not have to be modified,
all style and class files are supported, and bitmapped as well as postscript figures can be included directly into the final PDF.
Both methods of creating compliant PDFs work well.
However the work flow and requirements are slightly different.
Of course, they all require that the TeX installation being used supports Type 1 fonts.

dvips/ghostscript/distiller

pdfTeX

Fonts

Type 1

Type 1

Style files

All known styles supported

Limited support

Platforms

All

Linux (Y), Win (Y), Mac (?)

Graphics

EPS/JPEG/PNG

PDF

Workflow

latex+bibtex --> dvips --> PDF

latex+bibtex --> PDF

Dvipdfm generally works well, but has some bugs in processing certain types of .eps figures.
The only reliable way to work with dvipdfm when including encapsulated postscript figures in your document is to first convert them to PDF.

My TeX installation uses bitmapped fonts, what should I do?

All earlier TeX/LaTeX installations used METAFONT technology to create Type 3 fonts.
These fonts were customized for the printing device for which they were meant.
Unfortunately that does not help in the creation of PDF that renders well on the screen as well as
in print.
If you have the (La)TeX system installed on your own computer, upgrade it to a newer version.
Most newer packaged distributions come with Type 1 fonts.
All packages mentioned above support Type 1 fonts.
If you are using a network installation of LaTeX, please request
your system administrator to upgrade the installation with a
more recent distribution. Unfortunately, there is no reliable
way to convert fonts from bitmapped to vector once the document has been generated.
The changes have to be made when converting from latex --> dvi --> PDF.

I am using vector fonts, yet the PDF test says there are bitmap fonts in my paper. What should I do?

It may happen that even if your installation uses Type 1 fonts only your pdf document still contains bitmapped (Type 3) fonts.
The most likely source for bitmapped fonts are images that might be using bitmapped fonts.
You may check if these fonts originate from the graphics in the document by compiling the source file without the graphics.

The solution will be either to regenerate the offending images using Type 1 fonts or to convert them to raster images
such as JPEG or PNG..